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Liberlit 2018 – Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS! The Liberlit conference is an ongoing forum for literature teachers and academics based in Japan that addresses attitudes and approaches to literary texts in English, and seeks to discuss how and why literature should figure in Japan’s English curriculum. Proposals on topic areas related to the 2018 theme “Intersections between Literature and… Continue Reading

THEME FOR 2018: INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN LITERATURE AND REALITY

As both consumers and re-disseminators of literature, teachers often have to deal with a central question of relevance. Why do the clearly archaic styles of Shakespeare’s plays or Chaucer’s poetic tales matter? Of what interest to a modern reader is the setting of The Great Gatsby? What of writers from countries that a majority of… Continue Reading

PLENARY LECTURE FOR 2018: PROFESSOR NORIYUKI HARADA

Noriyuki Harada, Ph.D., Professor of English at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and President of the English Literary Society of Japan (ELSJ), majors in eighteenth-century English literature. His recent publications include “Translation and Transformation of Jonathan Swift’s Works in Japan” in “The First Wit of the Age”: Essays on Swift and His Contemporaries in Honour of Hermann J. Real (Peter Lang, 2013), Full Annotation for Gulliver’s Travels (in Japanese, Iwanami, 2013), “Teaching Eighteenth-Century English Literature in Japan: Purposes, Curricula, and Syllabi (Lit Matters, 2014), An Introduction to Gulliver’s Travels (in Japanese, NHK, 2015), Sexuality and Victorian Culture (co-edited in Japanese, Sairyusha, 2016), and “Literature, London, and Lives of the English Poets” in London and Literature, 1603-1901 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017). Continue Reading

LIBERLIT POSTGRADUATE PRESENTATION CONTEST 2018

The Liberlit conference is an ongoing forum for literature teachers and academics based in Japan that addresses attitudes and approaches to literary texts in English, and seeks to discuss how and why literature should figure in Japan’s English curriculum. Liberlit also wishes to offer an international yet Japan-based platform for promising young scholars to showcase… Continue Reading

LIBERLIT 2017 CONFERENCE SCHEDULE HANDBOOK

LIBERLIT 2017 PLENARY SPEAKER: KAZ OISHI

Dr. Kaz Oishi finished his D.Phil at Oxford, taught at the Open University of Japan, Nagoya University and has been an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo since 2012. His publications include Coleridge, Romanticism, and the Orient: Cultural Negotiations, co-edited with David Vallins and Seamus Perry (Bloomsbury, 2013), Cross-Cultural Negotiations: Romanticism, Mobility and the Orient, POETICA,… Continue Reading

THEME FOR 2017: DEMYSTIFYING WITHOUT DIMINISHING THE LITERARY TEXT

When students study literary texts in English they often approach them with trepidation; learners tasked with reading literature often carry a set of assumptions about its content. A writer’s reputation, cultural background, the perceived difficulty of a work or even the cover design and font-size of a text can prove off-putting for students. In this sense, learners embarking on… Continue Reading

LIBERLIT POSTGRADUATE PRESENTATION CONTEST

LIBERLIT POSTGRADUATE PRESENTATION CONTEST TO BE HELD AT THE 8th ANNUAL LIBERLIT CONFERENCE 2017: DEMYSTIFYING WITHOUT DIMINISHING THE LITERARY TEXT This year’s conference held at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University Conference day – February 20, Monday 2017 CALL FOR PAPERS! The Liberlit conference is an ongoing forum for literature teachers and academics based in Japan that… Continue Reading